Those That Haunt Us
by dropout-ninja
Summary: A part of each Crain child could be found reaching for what was surrounding the linear phase just as Hill House itself did. Shirley Crain has a ghost. It's not of someone who died in the grasp of Hill House. It's not someone who died at all.


_The Haunting of Hill House and its characters do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners._

_My goal was to be under 1K words for this oneshot and I made it! /throws confetti/_  
_This has spoilers for the series and also is massively theorizing from what I saw in the show, so it could be completely off canon._  
_Enjoy!_

* * *

Their matriarch had given them all the answers they needed. Long before she stepped foot in Hill House, she **SAW**. Colors. Memories. Futures. Her husband called them migraines.

As her daughter would later explain, Olivia Crain saw outside the **Line** reality existed as. And, just like that metaphorical confetti, though she saw unrestricted by the linear, she saw only pieces. Flashes. One tiny paper among a million.

Like bold Theo could feel emotions and emotionally charged memories before she moved to the House and kept those abilities after. The twins shared a link their siblings could never truly **UNDERSTAND** the depth of.

The ankle.

The **death**

They were all imaginative kids. Just like their mother, they were imaginative adults.

A part of them was always off that line; always able to stare into the confetti, though they could not step off the linear plane until they died.

Regardless, that part made them susceptible to ghosts.

And that was not limited to the dead souls devoured by Hill House.

* * *

Shirley Crain was not the most susceptible of the family. She could not see the spirits her sister Nell could. She was not sensitive to the many ghosts following the family like Luke was. She could not see the memories plaguing people like Theo did of Mr. Smiley.

Her job had her surrounded by the dead but it was rarely them that haunted her.

For years her dad's mantra had been that he could "fix this". But the man never did. None of their family ever did, not to her.

Steve had spat on their names with his breakout book. Luke wasted their hope and money for too long.

But she- she fixed things. Fixed people. She was delivered the dead and did her work to make them look as they did in their lives. Over the years she had seen, touched, sometimes even felt (like her family was apt to do), the dead.

They hadn't haunted her since she was a child. Not since the kittens. Not since her mom.

Shirl had different ghosts to haunt her than those wearing a dead face.

After she found Theo and Kevin in that closet, her ghost appeared. Over and over and over again.

Anywhere.

At a piano.

In a pew.

And finally, in the House.  
This ghost did not wear the decayed face of the corpses she worked with nor the horrifying visages of the spirits or visions that her siblings remembered and saw.

His face was cleaned and living and _handsome_ ...

What twisted Shirl the most was how real he appeared. The specter was just as real as her rattling house on halloween. Just as real as that mask she'd seen through her camera as a child or the eyes of the kitten she had thought was alive.

Just as real as Nell.

During the time between finding her husband and sister in that position and confronting the house, the apparition of him, in his clean suit and confident face and glinting wedding band on the hand that raised to toast her, haunted her everywhere.

The man appeared often. He would raise that martini wordlessly, and he would until she let go of the truth. All the while, all those years, and Shirl had refused to acknowledge it had happened, let alone speak about it to Kevin. And when her guard was down and reality seemed to loosen its grip and her imagination reached out like her mother's would, she summoned the ghost.

But he had not died in the grasp of the House.

He had not died at all.

* * *

The House saw him as soon as Shirley returned home. It saw everything in her mind. Just like Shirley's limitless mind could bring his visage forth, the House could make him appear as well. It could speak every word he had said. It could use every specter- a truly dead spirit, a regret, a trauma, a soul lost to the House forever- and it would use them on each of the Crain's.

And so the House brought his ghost forth once more- because it would do what it took to get its meal.

Shirl's guilt and anger over it all had summoned the ghost far from the House's grounds.

But the House could and would use everything haunting the Crain's to get them to return to it. It would do so even if the humans were away.

Because a part of each Crain child could be found **REACHING** to stare past the **LINE** at what was surrounding the linear phase just as the House itself did.

* * *

_AN- I started this based on the question: how did the ghosts appear outside of Hill House?_  
_While I have all sorts of theories on the more literal/traditional ghosts who died on the House's grounds like Nell who appeared, some of these ghosts seemed to be manifestations of trauma/regret/guilt/anger/etc by the Crain's themselves. Which made sense to me- Liv seemed to have something psychic going on and she would get her 'migraines' before they came to the House so that was something about her herself and not the house. All her kids (except Steve and Shirl) seem to have established abilities similar to that (Theo as an empath, the twins with their "twin thing")_  
_Basically, their mom and the kids all could "Shine" very well_

_Thank you for your time! If you noticed any grammar/spelling errors, please point them out so I can correct them :)_


End file.
